The Awesome Girl's Guide to Dating Extraordinary Men (26 page)

An awkward silence descended, but then my cell phone went off with “Winter in October,” my favorite single off of Risa’s recently released debut album.

I put in the earpiece on my twenty-dollar-a-month cell phone (which I often felt like a dinosaur for having, as opposed to a smartphone like Tammy, Risa, and Sharita) and answered without checking the caller ID, since I was driving.

“Hello, this is Thursday,” I said.

“Thursday, this is Mike.”

“Mike who?” I said, flipping through my mental Rolodex of the Mikes that I knew.

“Mike Barker.”

My mouth dropped open. “Oh, Mike.” I looked sideways at Tammy. “Um, I’m kind of busy right now. Can I call you back tomorrow or something?”

“Sure,” he said. “But I need to talk to you, so try to make it sooner than later.”

“Okay,” I said. “Will do.”

I hung up, hoping that Tammy hadn’t caught on that it had been her ex, Mike Barker, on the other side of the line. But when I took my earpiece out, Tammy was staring at me with a weirdly intense look on her face. “Was that Mike Barker?” she asked.

I thought about lying. I really did. And I would have done it, too, except, you know, she had cancer, and that seemed wrong, even for me. “Um, yeah.”

“I thought you two got in some big argument in Catalina?”

“We did,” I assured her. “But now he’s calling me.”

Tammy continued to stare me down. “Why?”

“I have no idea,” I said. “But I won’t call him back if you don’t want me to, okay?”

Tammy had always been so accommodating that I figured she wouldn’t make me follow through on this promise, but then she surprised me by saying, “Okay, I think that’s a good idea.”

I blinked. “You do?”

“Yes, actually, I do. I should have told you this at our New Year’s get-together, but you working with Mike makes me really uncomfortable. That was such a bad breakup for me, I can’t deal with the thought of him and you and cancer right now.”

“Um, it’s not him and me,” I pointed out. “It’s business. I’m sure it’s about the biopic.”

“I thought you hated that biopic.”

“Yeah, I do,” I said.

“Then it’s easy. Just don’t take his calls, okay?”

“Okay,” I said, keeping my voice neutral so that she wouldn’t get any more upset.

But then after a few moments of silence, she said, “I think … yes, I think I should tell you the full story of how Mike and I broke up.”

“You really don’t have to.”

“No, I do, because I don’t want you to think I’m just being a big old meanie. The truth is, he hurt me, Thursday, worse than I’ve ever let on.” She took a deep breath. “You already know that Davie, James, Veronica, and I all went to high school together, but what you don’t know is back then I wasn’t as nice of a person as I should have been, and Davie was … well, she wasn’t what she is today either. She was very unpopular, and Veronica and I ended playing this really evil trick on her. It was so bad, she ran away from home.”

“Ran away from home? That must have been some harsh trick.” Knowing Tammy, and having met her sister, I doubted that my friend should be taking much credit for this evil trick. Veronica, with her sharp angles and icy beauty, seemed like the kind of person who would prank someone so bad that she would run away from home. And Tammy, who had problems standing up to her sister, seemed like the kind of gentle sheep who would go along with it.

“Yes, it was harsh, and I’ll forever regret what we did to her. But the story doesn’t stop there. A few years later, Davie sicced Mike on me. She bet
him three thousand dollars that he couldn’t”—she made air quotes—“land me. So he hit me with his now-famous Mike Barker charm, and I fell head over heels in love with him. I even let him move in with me. And then when someone better came along, he dumped me and got with her, because Mike Barker gets what he wants—that’s his motto, and he doesn’t care who he hurts in the process.”

“Wait,” I said. “He went after you because of a bet, then he asked you to marry him, then he cheated on you, then he dumped you?”

“Yes, the cheating would have been bad enough, but I found out about the bet a few years ago when Davie got together with James. I could understand why Davie did it. What we did to her wasn’t right, and she’s since become a beloved member of our family. But Mike had no excuse for what he did. It took me a long time to get over that.”

For a moment she stared out the car window, lost in her memories of Mike. “He’s a user, Thursday, and manipulative, and a truly awful person, and it would keep me up at night, knowing that you were mixed up with someone like him.”

I shook my head. “You’re right,” I said to her. “I won’t call him back.”

RISA

I
don’t want to be a bitch or anything, but this was a very, very bad time for Tammy to get cancer. Yeah, I’d been raised Catholic, and though I was no longer practicing, that religious background combined with my ten-year journey to land a second record deal had made me advanced in the skill of clinging to hope—I had become good at believing in miracles.

But between Tammy’s cancer, and frat boys chanting “dyke” every time I took the stage at whatever midwestern college I was playing that night, and sleeping on a tour bus, and having to act like I was obsessed with a woman (a girl, really) who insisted on talking about “deep things” after sex, I was starting to feel like it was maybe more than even badass Risa could handle.

The One seemed so far away at that moment that it was becoming hard to imagine that I’d ever be with her. Not in this lifetime, anyway.

I hated the Midwest. I hated sleeping on a twin bunk in a rolling vehicle. I hated waking up with achy bones; it made me feel old. I hated feeling old. I hated talking about
Candide
at length like I was still in college and gave two shits about philosophy, especially after sex. That Peggy Lee song was playing in my head on a fucking loop:
Is that all there is to a fire?

Strangely enough, the only thing that made me feel better about any of this was calling Tammy, who was now taking any and all of my calls.

“I wish you were still taking me to chemo,” she said that night after our Columbus, Ohio, show. “You play depressing music and don’t make me feel like I have to pretend to be okay.”

“You don’t have to talk to Thursday and Sharita. They’d understand if you were, like, ‘Hey, I just had a shitload of chemicals pumped into my ass. Can you shut the fuck up?’”

Tammy giggled. “I can’t bring myself to do that, I’d feel bad if I did. Not like with you.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re comfortable putting in absolutely no effort with me.”

Tammy giggled again. “See, you make me laugh. That’s why I wish you were here.” Then out of nowhere: “Mike called Thursday while I was in the car with her.”

“I thought they weren’t talking or something?”

“They weren’t but suddenly now they are. Thursday’s on a roll. She and Sharita are friends again. Now Mike’s calling her. The next thing we know, she and Rick T are finally going to make up and go to the premiere of his biopic together.” Tammy laughed at her own uncharacteristically bitter joke, but then she got quiet again and said, “I have a bad feeling about Mike and Thursday.”

“Why? She hates him. And she’s in love with Caleb.”

“It sounds to me like she and Caleb are having some problems, and I know she hates Mike. But it’s like she hates him too much, like it could flip and become love and then …”

Tammy started crying, which had ceased alarming me. In movies, people dying of cancer always kept a stiff upper lip until they were either cured or had to say good-bye to the ones they loved. But in real life, any emotion could set Tammy off. Last Chemo Tuesday, she had answered the phone crying after watching the original
Breakin’
—a rare departure from
Dr. Who
. But it had been playing on the TV when Tammy woke up. Sharita and Thursday had left the remote on top of the television out of reaching distance, and Tammy hadn’t felt like getting up. So she had watched it. “They were so happy at the end,” she told me. “So young and happy.”

Now she was saying, “I can’t deal with this. With them. I shouldn’t have to.”

“You won’t. I promise.” And I made a mental note to call Thursday and make sure she stayed the fuck away from fucking Mike Barker for Tammy’s sake.

“I hate that I’m crying over this.”

“It’s okay.”

“I hate that they’re seeing me like this. Risa, I look so bad. I’m swollen, and all my hair is gone. I’ve got this skin rash—it’s so ugly.” She started crying again.

“No, no,” I told her. “Don’t say that. You’re beautiful.”

“I don’t want Sharita and Thursday to see me this way.”

“It’s okay, Tammy. They think you’re beautiful, too. No matter what. Everybody does.”

Tammy’s soft crying died down to a few sniffles. “Well, at least I won’t have to put up with them next Tuesday,” she said.

My call-waiting clicked. It was The Lead Singer’s Girlfriend. I pushed the “Ignore” button. “Yeah, today was your last day for this round of chemo. How did it go?”

“Not so great, maybe. The doctor called me into his office before today’s round to talk about the results from my last MRI. He said the cancer isn’t responding at all and, also, it’s spread into a couple of organs, so he’s suggesting we start a new kind of chemo in a few weeks.” She said this casually, like it was an afterthought and not all that important.

“Jesus, why didn’t you lead with that?” I asked, my heart thick in my throat. “And they think this new chemo will work?”

“No, not exactly. It’s more for palliative reasons.”

“What does ‘palliative’ mean?” I ask.

“It means making me more comfortable, so that there’s not too much pain,” she said. “I’ve got my at-home nurse, so I won’t need Sharita and Thursday to come over anymore. Do you mind telling them that for me? They’ve been so sweet, and I don’t want to hurt their feelings.”

A few moments of me not answering went by and she said, “Are you crying?”

And I said no, but the “no” came out strained, because of course I was crying. How could I fucking not be?

Let me give you a little bit of a warning beforehand. While you’re out there searching for extraordinary, you’re going to want to give up. You’re gonna wanna give up bad. In fact, what you really want to do is wait for that moment when you say, “I can’t do this anymore,” because that’s EXACTLY when you should redouble your efforts. By the way, this works for exercise plans, too. Just letting you know.

—
The Awesome Girl’s Guide to Dating Extraordinary Men
by Davie Farrell

SHARITA

R
isa said that Tammy said she didn’t need Thursday and me to take her to chemotherapy or bring her food anymore. Risa said that Tammy said she was fine with her live-out nurse. Risa said that Tammy said she didn’t need company and, in fact, wanted to be alone.

But Risa was on the road, and though I’d been dating my Career for a few months now, I missed having someone to watch
Dr. Who
with. Thursday, though available, insisted on watching only “shows that make sense,” and according to her,
Dr. Who
didn’t qualify.

So the first Saturday after Tammy got the news that her cancer was terminal, I worked a full day of unpaid overtime at my firm, then I sat in traffic for over an hour and showed up at Tammy’s condo with Chinese takeout for us to eat in front of
Dr. Who
.

Tammy didn’t turn me away. She buzzed me up, opened the door, and let me ladle some fried rice onto a plate for her. And even though she sometimes only picked at her food while we watched the latest season of
Dr. Who
, we settled into a comfortable routine.

Tammy didn’t complain about me defying her wishes as expressed through Risa. Every Saturday, she greeted me on the intercom and said, “Come on up.” Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was intruding on Tammy, as opposed to keeping her company.

Other than her short hair, which wasn’t growing back very fast, it wouldn’t have been obvious from looking at her that Tammy had cancer. Her face appeared a little swollen and maybe her body wasn’t as toned as it used to be, since she’d stopped exercising. But other than that, it’d be easy to think that she was perfectly healthy and that she had ten toes underneath the thick socks she wore around the condo.